8/19/2012 • Reviews , Wild West Reviews Maverick: The Complete First Season, Warner Home Video, 22 1/2 hours on seven discs, 2012, $39.98 If you’re a fan of classic television, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the longstanding and mind-boggling unavailability of Maverick (no, not the Mel Gibson 1994 Western comedy movie) on DVD. But Warner Bros. has finally given the relentlessly witty and graceful frontier gambler a seat at the (poker) table, releasing the entire 27-episode first season. Created by Roy Huggins, and running from 1957–62, Maverick was the smartest, funniest and, arguably, greatest Western of this golden age in TV Westerns. In contrast to the unwavering, by-the-book heroes that filled the small screen at the time (the likes of Marshall Dillon, Ben Cartwright, Marshal Dan Troop, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Lucas McCain), Maverick was a hero who lived by a distinct but not necessarily distinguished ethical code.

Passed down to him by his “Pappy,” this code emphasized survival and the pursuit of money above such attributes as courage and honor. As Bret Maverick (James Garner) remembers it in “Day of Reckoning,” before sending Bret and brother Bart (Jack Kelly) off to the Civil War, their Pappy told them, “If either one of you comes back with a medal, I’ll beat you to death.” The Maverick code itself was realized through the sharp writing and exceptional performances. Garner is flawless as the wandering gambler Bret, nailing every punch line and clever smirk while seamlessly transitioning into heavier dramatic scenes. The series would not have consummated the perfect balance between comedy and drama if not for Garner, who subsequently, and deservedly so, shot to stardom. But Kelly, who joined the series as brother Bart in episode seven (enabling the studio to produce multiple episodes at once, alternating between Bret and Bart) shines on his own, though he never could quite match Garner’s deadpan humor. Credit is also due to Huggins and the many, many writers he employed to make a standout series on such a small budget (Warner Bros.

used footage from old B-movies for some of the larger action scenes), and one that has withstood time so well. Gene Levitt, Russell Hughes and Douglass Heyes were among the team of writers, who adapted many of the stories from turned-down B-movie scripts and dime magazine tales. Maverick derived its hour-long stories from a variety of genres, and the first season embodies this range, perhaps even more so than later seasons, when the series became more comfortable and predictable. First-season adventures range anywhere from courtroom drama (“Rope of Cards,” which feels like the murder trial in 12 Angry Men) to mystery (“Black Fire,” which feels like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None) to adventure (“Plunder of Paradise,” which has a touch of John Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre). While the show certainly has its limitations and conventions, each episode feels fresh and distinctive. In “Stampede” Bret Maverick is joined by the lovably conniving crook Dandy Jim Buckley (a recurring character played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), after they’re robbed and stranded on an island.

In “Trail West to Fury” Bret and Bart recount to Dandy Jim why they can’t return to their home state of Texas. The only thing better than one Maverick is two. They would pair up three other times in this season, including in “The Wrecker,” based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1892 novel of the same name. Along with the aforementioned “Trail West to Fury,” Gene Levitt also wrote the hilarious “Comstock Conspiracy,” which may be the prototypical episode of the season. The irresistible Southern charm of Samantha Crawford (Diane Brewster) is on tap in two Bret episodes, but she’s at her best in Bart’s “The Savage Hills.” Among the draws of Maverick is that the series plays with our expectations. That said, early in the first season the show clearly hadn’t found its comfort zone. “Ghost Rider,” which deals with the supernatural, and “Point Blank” (one of three episodes directed by B Western legend Budd Boetticher), which draws heavily from the noir genre (complete with a complex caper and archetypal femme fatale), are two early entries that demonstrate the series was still in experimental mode.

There’s seldom use of Maverick’s laid-back, tongue-in-cheek humor and an ample amount of grittiness, with “Point Blank” being the worst offender. While none of these early episodes capture the essence of Maverick (“According to Hoyle” gets the closest), they remain enjoyable to even the most diehard fan, who at the very least can appreciate the evolution of the show. There’s a moment in “Relic of Fort Tejon” in which a young gunslinger confronts Bret in the street. The boyish hothead is egging him on, and despite the fact he’s just been robbed and shot, Maverick does not lose his temper or go for his gun. Instead, he calmly removes his hat, using it to obscure his right hand from view. When the gunslinger urges him to go for his gun, Maverick replies, “That won’t be necessary, you see I’ve already got a derringer in this hat pointed right at your heart.” After some deliberation, the gunslinger drops his gun belt on Maverick’s orders. Maverick approaches him and removes a fist from under his hat, revealing the bluff, and knocks the man out.

This is not how Paladin or Marshall Dillon or any of their heroic contemporaries would’ve handled it, but it’s how Maverick became the legend of the West. One sentence of warning: While the show has been well restored on DVD, with the exception of a few noticeably grainy shots, there’s not a special feature in sight, so if you were dying for cast and crew bios and interviews, you may be disappointed. —Louis Lalire ICv2: DVD Round-Up: 'True Blood,' 'Maverick,' & 'Monroe' TV on DVD HBO’s True Blood has put the “gothic” back in “Southern gothic” with a bizarre and compelling mix of sexy supernatural creatures with appalling habits and appealing stories. True Blood Season 4 (HBO, $59.99, BD $79.99) features excellent work from the show’s standout cast that includes Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard, and Deborah Ann Woll. Season 4 takes the series in a darker direction defined in part by Fiona Shaw’s Marnie, who has proved to be an exceptional antagonist. One of the best Golden Age western series makes its debut on Tuesday.

Maverick Season 1 (Warner Bros. 1350 min., $39.98) was an amazing breath of fresh air when it debuted in 1957. James Garner’s smooth talking Bret Maverick was smart, slick, and consequently (given the ridiculous "code of the West") cowardly. Maverick brought both humor and realism (the spot-on parody of Gunsmoke made it clear that the latter film’s opening duel sequence was absurd given the inaccuracy of the pistols of the era) to the TV western. Unfortunately Garner’s Bret Maverick had to share the series with his straight (and supremely uninteresting) brother Bart (Jack Kelly). So skip the "Bart" episodes and embrace the "Brets,"—you won’t be disappointed.

Contemporary series due this week include the Canadian-produced cop show Rookie Blue: Season 2 (eOne, 550 min., $39.98, BD $49.98), which contains all 13 episodes of the series that aired on ABC in the U.S., and the Long Island "valet" physician drama Royal Pains: Season 3, Vol.2 (Universal, $26.98). A much better medical drama is Monroe Series 1 (Acorn Media, 274 min., $39.99), which includes all six episodes of the ITV series that stars James Nesbitt (Murphy’s Law) as a brilliant, but difficult neurosurgeon with an ego the size of Greenland. Folks who are suffering withdrawal symptoms from the end of the House TV series should give Monroe a try. This week’s other foreign entry is Murdoch Mysteries Season 4 (Acorn Media, 624 min., $49.99, BD $59.99). This Canadian series is set in the early 1900s and features a team of detectives that are pioneering in their use of forensic science to catch criminals.

Slim pickings on the TV animation front this week, just the single-disc Garfield Show Vol. 6 (Vivendi, 72 min., $14.93), and the lame, computer game-based Wing Commander Academy: The Complete Series (FirstLook, 268 min., $24.98) collecting the 1990s series. Altogether more interesting is Lancelot Link/Secret Chimp: Complete Special Collector’s Edition (Film Chest, 600 min., $24.98), a bizarre Saturday morning show from the early 1970s that was basically a direct rip-off of Get Smart featuring chimpanzees dubbed by "Grade Z" actors engaging in a hairy send-up of the spy genre. Anime This week’s top new release is Dragon Ball Z Kai Part 8 (Funimation, "13+," 250 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), the latest installment of the hi-def re-mastering of the popular DBZ series with all the "filler" material (stuff that doesn’t appear in Akira Toriyama’s DBZ manga) eliminated.

DBZ Kai is a staple of the NickToons cable network where its multiple showings have led to a revival of the property. The other "new" release is Kurenai (Sentai Filmworks, "17+," 300 min., $49.99), a 13-episode series from Brains Base that was loosely based on the light novel by Kentaro Katayama and aired in Japan in 2008. Sentai’s version is subtitled only. Re-priced releases include a new edition of Boogiepop Phantom Complete TV Series (Right Stuf, "15+," 360 min., $29.99), one of the most interesting anime horror series of all time, and the Hero Tales Complete Series (Funimation, "14+," 650 min., $59.98). James Garner Interview | Archive of American Television from the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television James Garner has been called our finest television actor; he has been compared more than once to Cary Grant, but also deemed dependably folksy.

Possessed of a natural gift for humor, a charm that works equally well for romantic comedy and tongue-in-cheek adventure, Garner patented the persona of the reluctant hero as his own early in his career, but also exhibited an understated flair for drama that has deepened with age. Garner began his television career in the fifties, becoming a movie star in short order, and maintains an active presence in both media nearly forty years later. Transplanted to Hollywood after a knockabout adolescence and stints in the Merchant Marine and Korea, the strapping Oklahoman came to acting almost by chance, at the urging of an old friend-turned-talent agent. Although his first job, in a touring company of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, was a non-speaking role, it enabled the 25-year-old actor to work with--and learn from--Henry Fonda, and led to a bigger part in a second national tour of the play. Spotted by Warners Brothers producers, he was hired for small parts on two episodes of the western series Cheyenne, after which the studio signed him to a contract.

After a turn as a con man in an installment of the anthology Conflict and small parts in two Warners features, Garner landed a major role as Marlon Brando's pal in Sayonara. On the heels of this breakthrough, Garner was signed as the lead in Maverick , a new western series created by Roy Huggins. As wandering gambler Bret Maverick, Garner perfected a persona that would remain with him throughout his career: the lovable con-man with a soul of honor and a streak of larceny. Maverick put more emphasis on humor than gunplay, but while Bret and brother Bart (Jack Kelly) were a bit more pragmatic--not to say cowardly--than most TV heroes, the series was not a wholesale satire on westerns, although it did parody the genre--and TV favorites like Bonanza--on occasion. Immediately upon signing as Maverick, Garner found himself cast in leading roles in Warner Brothers features. He made three routine films for the studio during breaks from the series--but he was still being paid as a television contract player. When Warner's suspended the young star in 1960 during a writer's strike, Garner walked off the series and out of his contract.

The studio sued, and lost, and Garner would not return to television--apart from guest shots in comedy-variety shows, or golf tournaments--for a decade. Garner made a comfortable transition to features, becoming a bankable box-office name in the early 1960s. He made eighteen features during the decade, a mix of adventures (The Great Escape), westerns (Duel at Diablo), and romantic comedies (The Thrill of It All). Garner tested his dramatic muscles in downbeat psychological thrillers like Mister Buddwing, and made a calculated turn against type as a grim, vengeful Wyatt Earp in Hour of the Gun, but his most successful films emphasized his innate charm and flair for irony. Save for a boost from the tongue-in-cheek western Support Your Local Sheriff, by the late 1960s Garner's drawing power as a movie star was in decline. Garner returned to form, and to television, in 1971 with the turn-of-the-century western Nichols. The series also marked Garner's return to Warner Brothers, this time as a partner and co-producer (through his Cherokee Productions) rather than an employee.

Set in Arizona circa 1914, Nichols was an affectionate depiction of the death of the old west, with Garner cast as the motorcycle-bound sheriff of an Arizona town. Nichols was amiably shady a la Maverick, but with a harder edge, more greed, and less honor. An innovative concept peopled with offbeat characters, Nichols premiered with mediocre ratings that were not aided by schedule-juggling. The network, theorizing that Garner's character was too avaricious and unlikable, decreed a change: Sheriff Nichols was murdered in the last episode aired, and replaced by his more stalwart twin brother Jim Nichols. Before the strategy could be tested in additional episodes, or an additional season, the program was canceled. It remains the actor's favorite among his own series. After returning to the big screen for a few fairly undistinguished features (e.g., They Only Kill Their Masters) in 1974 Garner was cast in what might be called the second defining role of his television career, as laid-back private detective Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files. A product of writer-producers Roy Huggins and Stephen J.

Cannell, Rockford was in some ways an updated version of Maverick, infusing its mysteries with a solid dose of humor, and flirting with genre parody. At the same time, however, thanks to fine writing and strong characters, the series worked superbly as a realistic private eye yarn in the Chandler tradition. Garner left Rockford in 1980, in the middle of the series' sixth season, suffering from the rigors of its action-packed production. Soon after, Universal sued the actor for breaching his contract, but in 1983 Garner, ever the maverick off-screen, brought a $22.5 million suit against the studio for creatively accounting him out of his Rockford profits; six years later Universal settled for an undisclosed, reportedly multi-million dollar, sum. Garner had dusted off his gambler's duds in 1978 for two appearances as Bret Maverick in the pilot and first episode of a short-lived series Young Maverick (same concept, now featuring a young cousin as the wandering hero).

A year after exiting Rockford, Garner revived his original roguish alter-ego once more in a new series, Bret Maverick, with the dapper cardsharp now older and more settled as a rancher and saloon owner in an increasingly modern west. Despite good ratings, the show was canceled after one season, ostensibly because its demographics skewed too old. Garner took on the occasional movie role throughout the eighties, in hits like Victor, Victoria (1982), and Murphy's Romance (1985)--which earned him an Oscar nomination--and misses like Tank (1984) and Sunset (1988). But feature work became almost a sidelight for the actor as he entered a new phase of his career, cultivating his dramatic side in a succession of made-for-television movies and miniseries. Apart from a fairly pedestrian role in the soap-epic miniseries Space, Garner's performances in The Long Summer of George Adams, The Glitter Dome, My Name is Bill W., and Decoration Day allowed him to explore and expand his palette as a character actor.

He earned some of the best notices of his career (and two Emmy nominations) for his performances in Heartsounds, as a physician facing his own mortality, and Promise, as a self-involved bachelor faced with the responsibility of caring for his schizophrenic brother. More recently Garner won praise as Joanne Woodward's curmudgeonly husband in Breathing Lessons, and for his portrayal of the taciturn Woodrow Call in Streets of Laredo, a mini-series sequel to Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. Garner the affable charmer did not completely abandon the light touch, however. In 1991 he returned to series television in a half-hour comedy Man of the People, as a gambler and con-man appointed by corrupt politicos to fill the city council seat of his late ex-wife. Independent and honorable (in his way), Councilman Jim Doyle managed to confound his patrons and do some good for the community while lining his own pockets.

(Shades of Nichols, low ratings prompted producers to try to make the character "warmer" after a few months, but the tinkering didn't help and the show was canceled at mid-season.) Two years later Garner was cast as RJR-Nabisco executive Ross Johnson in HBO's Barbarians at the Gate, in large part to ensure that at least one character in the cast of corporate cutthroats would have some likability. When Maverick was reincarnated as a theatrical film in 1993 (with Mel Gibson as Bret), Garner was there as an aging lawman who turns out to have more than a passing connection to the Maverick legend. And P.I. Jim Rockford was revived in a series of Rockford Files made-for-television reunion movies beginning in 1994, his relaxed attitude and wry anti-heroics intact. With three Rockford movies aired, three more projected, and other television and feature projects in the pipeline, James Garner has never been busier--or better. As he approaches the end of his fourth decade as an actor, Garner demonstrates true maturity at his craft (he would undoubtedly call it a "job").

Described as "amiable" and "lovable" in countless career profiles, Garner's warmth and likability were best suited, perhaps, to the intimacy of television's small screen and serial storytelling forms. And yet from the very beginning his career constituted a unique exception in the hierarchy of Hollywood stardom, as he passed back and forth with relative ease between television and feature work, and--although that boundary remains distinct, and crossover rare--still does. Like many of Hollywood's greatest actors, he tends to play an extension of himself--a la Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, and his mentor Henry Fonda. Like them, Garner is affecting not because of his ability to obliterate himself and become a character, but because of his ability to exploit his own personality in creating a part. Admittedly, it is a different sort of talent than that of a DeNiro or Duvall. Yet, as Jean Vallely wrote in Esquire, DeNiro is probably unsuited to television stardom--he may not be the kind of star we want to see our living room. "On the other hand," Vallely wrote, "you love having Garner around. He becomes part of the fabric of the family.

You really care about him." Where DeNiro impresses us with his skill, Garner welcomes us with his humanity. Which is why he may indeed be the quintessential TV actor, and why he surely will be remembered by television audiences as he has said he wishes to be: "with a smile." -Mark Alvey JAMES GARNER. Born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.A., 7 April 1928. Attended University of Oklahoma; studied acting at Herbert Bergof Studios, New York. Served with U.S. Merchant Marines in Korean War (awarded Purple Heart). Married: Lois Clark, 1956; children: Greta, Kimberly, and Scott. Began career with stage production The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, early 1950s; offered contract with Warner Brothers, 1956; film debut, Toward the Unknown, 1956; title role in Maverick, 1957-62; title role in The Rockford Files, NBC-TV, 1974-79. Recipient: Emmy Awards, 1977 and 1986.

TELEVISION SERIES Roy Huggins Interview | Archive of American Television from the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television Roy Huggins is a prolific and influential producer who created several of the most enduring dramatic series in the history of television, including Maverick (1957-62), 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64), The Fugitive (1963-67), and The Rockford Files (1974-80). Huggins has spent much of his 44 career in television as a producer for two large studios, Warner Brothers and Universal. Working within these studios, Huggins served as producer or executive producer on made-for-television movies, miniseries, and more than twenty dramatic series. While Huggins supervised a wide range of projects, many of which were simply studio assignments, he was one of the first writer-producers to emerge once television production shifted to Hollywood in the 1950s. Many of his series bear the distinctive stamp of his irreverent, self-deprecating wit and his fondness for characters who operate on the margins of society. As a civilian employee of the U.S.

government during the war, Huggins spent his spare time writing hard-boiled crime fiction, inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler. In 1946 his first novel, "The Double Take," was published. Huggins sold several serialized mysteries to "The Saturday Evening Post," and soon published two more novels, "Too Late for Tears" and "Lovely Lady, Pity Me." When Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to "The Double Take" in 1949, Huggins recognized an opportunity for more steady employment and signed to adapt the script. From here he entered the movie industry, working as a contract writer at Columbia and RKO. In 1952 he wrote and directed the feature film "Hangman's Knot", a Randolph Scott western produced by independent producer Harry Joe Brown for Columbia. Afterwards, he signed a contract with Columbia, where he worked as a staff writer until 1955. Huggins made the transition to television in April 1955, when Warner Brothers hired him as a producer for its inaugural television series, Warner Brothers Presents, an omnibus series which featured three alternating dramas, King's Row, Casablanca, and Cheyenne.

Huggins agreed to produce King's Row, but after creating the series he was reassigned to Cheyenne in order to salvage the faltering series, which faced withering reviews from both critics and sponsors. Huggins rescued Cheyenne by recycling scripts from Warner Brothers movies such as "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), often simply inserting the character of Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) into familiar stories from the studio vaults. These changes brought the series a measure of respect as an "adult" western and made it the studio's first full-fledged hit. Huggins immediately moved from Cheyenne to Conflict (1956-57), a short-lived anthology series that alternated with the western. During the production of Conflict Huggins met James Garner, an actor who perfectly embodied his wry sense of humor. When Warner Brothers asked Huggins to create a new series, he thought immediately of Garner and tailored Maverick as a star vehicle. In a crowded field of TV westerns, Maverick quickly moved into the top ten and won an Emmy for Best Western in 1958.

Maverick was a refreshing antidote to the strained seriousness of so many westerns, including Cheyenne, but it was also ground-breaking because it redefined the heroic protagonist and brought a sly self-mockery to television drama. For the first time, Huggins built a series around a flawed central character, a reluctant hero who lives on the fringes of society. Huggins wanted Bret Maverick to have none of the "irritating perfection" of TV's western heroes. Instead, Maverick is a much more complicated character than those found at the center of most dramatic series up to that time. Although obviously charming, he is an unrepentant rascal whose moral code is molded by expediency, greed, and the need for self-preservation. As Garner and co-star Jack Kelly, who played brother Bart Maverick, proved adept at balancing a subtle blend of adventure and comedy, Huggins guided the series in the direction of comedy. While generally sending up the entire western genre, Maverick soon began to needle its more serious competitors, offering razor-sharp parodies of Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

The touch of irony that Huggins brought to the western genre in Maverick--an irreverent blend of drama and comedy--has become one of the defining characteristics of dramatic series in the subsequent years. During the second season of Maverick, Huggins created the detective series, 77 Sunset Strip, which was based loosely on his novel, "Lovely Lady, Pity Me." 77 Sunset Strip revived the crime drama on television, much as Maverick had revived the western, by injecting a healthy dose of humor into a genre trapped in grim rites of law and order. In place of the stolid cops who governed most crime series, 77 Sunset Strip brought the hard-boiled private detective into the endless summer of Los Angeles circa 1958. Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Roger Smith as private detectives Stuart Bailey and Jeff Spenser, the series defined Sunset Boulevard as the epicenter of hipness on television, a sun-drenched world of cocktails, cool jazz, and convertibles. 77 Sunset Strip lacked the satirical edge of Maverick, because after producing the pilot episode Huggins had no responsibility for the series.

Nor did he have anything to do with the clones generated by the Warner Brothers brass--Hawaiian Eye (1959-63), Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60), and Surfside 6 (1960-62). Huggins also stopped producing Maverick after the second season, wearied by the pace of production at Warner Brothers and by the studio's tight-fisted finances. As a matter of policy, Warner Brothers refused to share profits with its television personnel--including Huggins, its most gifted and indispensable producer. Huggins was directly responsible for the studio's three most successful series, but was not even given credit for having created Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip, which studio executives claimed had been based on properties already owned by the studio. Huggins left Warner Brothers and in October 1960 became the vice -president in charge of television production at 20th Century-Fox. This proved to be a strange interlude in his career, because while he was only able to place one series in prime time, that series stirred up an inordinate amount of controversy.

Bus Stop (1961-1962), adapted from the play by William Inge, was set in a small town in Colorado, a way-station on an otherwise endless highway. The central location served as the premise for an anthology series featuring the stories of wandering, disenfranchised characters who passed through the bus stop. The program gained national notoriety when an episode titled "A Lion Walks Among Us" starred pop icon Fabian as a charismatic psychopath who commits several cold-blooded murders. In the climate of criticism that was soon crystallized by the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (Newton Minow's "Vast Wasteland" speech), the episode became a target of television critics and politicians, who seized upon it in order to decry television's degrading influence on American culture. Stung by the criticism of the series, 20th Century-Fox placed Huggins in a kind of administrative limbo by refusing to allow him to develop other series and essentially waiting for his contract to expire. Huggins used the unexpected free time to write a stinging rebuttal of Minow that appeared in "Television Quarterly".

In writing the article Huggins became one of the few members of Hollywood's creative community to defend the artistic merit of commercial, popular culture and to question Minow's essentially elitist criticism of television. He criticized Minow and other cultural elitists for allowing their contempt for kitsch--"their dread of being caught in a profane mood"--to cloud their judgment. Huggins's essay amounted to a sophisticated and subtle defense of popular culture in an era when television producers did not make artistic claims for their work. "The public arts," he wrote, "are created for a mass audience and for a profit; that is their essential nature. But they can at times achieve truth and beauty, and given freedom they will achieve it more and more often." After the debacle at Fox, Huggins returned to graduate school at UCLA, determined to get his Ph.D. and to leave television behind. He needed a bankroll and came up with the idea of creating a series that he could sell to another producer, then sit back and watch the residuals roll in. This series was The Fugitive, which he sold to independent producer Quinn Martin after overcoming ABC's initial resistance to a series with an escaped convict as its central character. The story of Dr.

Richard Kimble (David Janssen), suspected of murdering his wife and forced to flee the police while in pursuit of the actual killer, carried the mythic resonance of quest narratives from "The Odyssey" to "Les Miserables." Huggins wanted to update the western by placing its wandering hero in a contemporary setting. In transposing the stock figure of the wanderer from the mythic landscape of the West to the landscape of 1960s America, he created a new and unsettling dramatic hero for television, a rootless, paranoid loner, the most unsettled character on the New Frontier of Kennedy-era America. The quest--the ongoing tension between pursuit and capture--was new to prime-time series and gave The Fugitive a powerful narrative momentum which paid off in the record-setting ratings for the final episodes. The Fugitive did not exhibit Huggins's characteristic sense of humor, but it developed his fascination with heroic outcasts and revealed his skepticism toward what he considered the American "cult of optimism." In 1963 Huggins gave up his plans of graduate school and accepted a job as a vice president in the television division at Universal, where he spent the next 18 years.

During this period, Universal became the predominant creator of dramatic series, often accounting for much of the NBC schedule throughout the 1960s. Huggins adapted to the programming formats that evolved over the years at Universal, producing series, made-for-TV movies, and miniseries. He began by producing The Virginian (1962-71) and Kraft Suspense Theater (1963-65). He created and produced Run for Your Life (1965-68), a variation on The Fugitive in which attorney Paul Bryan (Ben Gazzara) sets off on adventurous journey after discovering that he has a mysterious fatal illness and only two years to live. In 1969 Huggins set up an independent production company, Public Arts, at Universal and began a series of co-productions with the studio. He created The Lawyers segment of the omnibus series The Bold Ones (1969-72) and produced several other series, including Alias Smith and Jones (1971-73), Toma (1973-74), and Baretta (1975-78).

The crown jewel of Huggins's period at Universal is certainly The Rockford Files, which he co-created with Stephen J. Cannell. Huggins produced The Rockford Files for only two seasons, but his influence is unmistakable in the self-deprecating, slightly disreputable private eye played by James Garner. In the late 1970s Huggins turned to producing miniseries, including Captains and Kings (1976) and Arthur Hailey's Wheels (1978). His association with Universal ended in 1980, when he left to concentrate on writing. In 1985 he returned to television at the request of his former protege Stephen J. Cannell to produce Hunter (1984-1991). Recent feature-film versions of The Fugitive (1993) and Maverick (1994) have been fantastic successes at the box office. Their success is a tribute to Huggins's lasting importance as one of television's great storytellers. -Christopher Anderson ROY HUGGINS. Born in Litelle, Washington, U.S.A., 18 July 1914.

Educated at the University of California, 1935-41. Married: Adele Mara. Worked as a special representative of the U.S. Civil Service, 1941-43; industrial engineer, 1943-46; screenwriter, 1952-55; producer, Warner Brothers Television, 1955-60; vice-president of 20th Century Fox Television, 1960; producer, MCA Revue, Universal Television, 1963-80; president of production company, Public Arts, Inc. in Universal City, California; writer, director, producer for television, since 1968. TELEVISION SERIES (producer) 1955-56 Warner Brother's Presents: King's Row (creator) 1955-63 Warner Brother's Presents: Cheyenne 1956-57 Conflict Roy Huggins | Television Academy Television Academy Roy Huggins on meeting with ABC's Leonard Goldenson about The Fugitive 05:26 I did some things that were widely imitated.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That was flattering to me. 'Maverick' was imitated, 'The Fugitive' was imitated. I did all right. I had a great time. About this interview In his five-hour Archive interview, Roy Huggins (1914-2002) talks about his early years as a novelist and member of the Communist Party. He recalls getting into screenwriting at Columbia Pictures with films like "Hangman's Knot," and subsequently being blacklisted. He describes testifying in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he confirmed the names of several suspected communists. He recounts his early years with Warner Bros. Television, where he wrote for shows like King's Row and Cheyenne, as well as creating the smash hit western series Maverick starring James Garner and Jack Kelly. Huggins discusses creating 77 Sunset Strip for Warner Bros. before leaving for Universal Television where he wrote and produced The Virginian and created the smash hit The Fugitive.

He speaks of creating the movie of the week concept, which he claims was stolen from him, and outlines having a hand in creating several hit '70s shows including Toma, The Rockford Files, and Baretta. He concludes by talking about the many television and feature film revivals of his shows, and recalling several people with whom he has worked in his career. Lee Goldberg conducted the interview on July 21, 1998 in Brentwood, CA. I did some things that were widely imitated. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That was flattering to me. 'Maverick' was imitated, 'The Fugitive' was imitated. I did all right. I had a great time.

Roy Huggins on meeting with ABC's Leonard Goldenson about The Fugitive Roy Huggins on meeting with ABC's Leonard Goldenson about The Fugitive05:26 Roy Huggins on the Maverick episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" Roy Huggins on the Maverick episode "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres"01:53 Roy Huggins on writing and producing Cheyenne Roy Huggins on writing and producing Cheyenne04:05 Roy Huggins on co-creating The Rockford Files with Stephen J. Cannell Roy Huggins on co-creating The Rockford Files with Stephen J.

Cannell02:40 Roy Huggins on his career and his biggest contribution to television Roy Huggins on his career and his biggest contribution to television01:38 Related Content From the Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Television: Roy Huggins is a prolific and influential producer who created several of the most enduring dramatic series in the history of television, including Maverick (1957-62), 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64), The Fugitive (1963-67), and The Rockford Files (1974-80). Huggins has spent much of his 44 career in television as a producer for two large studios, Warner Brothers and Universal. Working within these studios, Huggins served as producer or executive producer on made-for-television movies, miniseries, and more than twenty dramatic series. While Huggins supervised a wide range of projects, many of which were simply studio assignments, he was one of the first writer-producers to emerge once television production shifted to Hollywood in the 1950s.

Many of his series bear the distinctive stamp of his irreverent, self-deprecating wit and his fondness for characters who operate on the margins of society. As a civilian employee of the U.S. government during the war, Huggins spent his spare time writing hard-boiled crime fiction, inspired by the work of Raymond Chandler. In 1946 his first novel, "The Double Take," was published. Huggins sold several serialized mysteries to "The Saturday Evening Post," and soon published two more novels, "Too Late for Tears" and "Lovely Lady, Pity Me." When Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to "The Double Take" in 1949, Huggins recognized an opportunity for more steady employment and signed to adapt the script. From here he entered the movie industry, working as a contract writer at Columbia and RKO. In 1952 he wrote and directed the feature film "Hangman's Knot", a Randolph Scott western produced by independent producer Harry Joe Brown for Columbia. Afterwards, he signed a contract with Columbia, where he worked as a staff writer until 1955.

Huggins made the transition to television in April 1955, when Warner Brothers hired him as a producer for its inaugural television series, Warner Brothers Presents, an omnibus series which featured three alternating dramas, King's Row, Casablanca, and Cheyenne. Huggins agreed to produce King's Row, but after creating the series he was reassigned to Cheyenne in order to salvage the faltering series, which faced withering reviews from both critics and sponsors. Huggins rescued Cheyenne by recycling scripts from Warner Brothers movies such as "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), often simply inserting the character of Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) into familiar stories from the studio vaults. These changes brought the series a measure of respect as an "adult" western and made it the studio's first full-fledged hit. Huggins immediately moved from Cheyenne to Conflict (1956-57), a short-lived anthology series that alternated with the western. During the production of Conflict Huggins met James Garner, an actor who perfectly embodied his wry sense of humor.

When Warner Brothers asked Huggins to create a new series, he thought immediately of Garner and tailored Maverick as a star vehicle. In a crowded field of TV westerns, Maverick quickly moved into the top ten and won an Emmy for Best Western in 1958. Maverick was a refreshing antidote to the strained seriousness of so many westerns, including Cheyenne, but it was also ground-breaking because it redefined the heroic protagonist and brought a sly self-mockery to television drama. For the first time, Huggins built a series around a flawed central character, a reluctant hero who lives on the fringes of society. Huggins wanted Bret Maverick to have none of the "irritating perfection" of TV's western heroes. Instead, Maverick is a much more complicated character than those found at the center of most dramatic series up to that time. Although obviously charming, he is an unrepentant rascal whose moral code is molded by expediency, greed, and the need for self-preservation.

As Garner and co-star Jack Kelly, who played brother Bart Maverick, proved adept at balancing a subtle blend of adventure and comedy, Huggins guided the series in the direction of comedy. While generally sending up the entire western genre, Maverick soon began to needle its more serious competitors, offering razor-sharp parodies of Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The touch of irony that Huggins brought to the western genre in Maverick--an irreverent blend of drama and comedy--has become one of the defining characteristics of dramatic series in the subsequent years. During the second season of Maverick, Huggins created the detective series, 77 Sunset Strip, which was based loosely on his novel, "Lovely Lady, Pity Me." 77 Sunset Strip revived the crime drama on television, much as Maverick had revived the western, by injecting a healthy dose of humor into a genre trapped in grim rites of law and order. In place of the stolid cops who governed most crime series, 77 Sunset Strip brought the hard-boiled private detective into the endless summer of Los Angeles circa 1958. Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

and Roger Smith as private detectives Stuart Bailey and Jeff Spenser, the series defined Sunset Boulevard as the epicenter of hipness on television, a sun-drenched world of cocktails, cool jazz, and convertibles. 77 Sunset Strip lacked the satirical edge of Maverick, because after producing the pilot episode Huggins had no responsibility for the series. Nor did he have anything to do with the clones generated by the Warner Brothers brass--Hawaiian Eye (1959-63), Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60), and Surfside 6 (1960-62). Huggins also stopped producing Maverick after the second season, wearied by the pace of production at Warner Brothers and by the studio's tight-fisted finances. As a matter of policy, Warner Brothers refused to share profits with its television personnel--including Huggins, its most gifted and indispensable producer. Huggins was directly responsible for the studio's three most successful series, but was not even given credit for having created Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip, which studio executives claimed had been based on properties already owned by the studio.

Huggins left Warner Brothers and in October 1960 became the vice -president in charge of television production at 20th Century-Fox. This proved to be a strange interlude in his career, because while he was only able to place one series in prime time, that series stirred up an inordinate amount of controversy. Bus Stop (1961-1962), adapted from the play by William Inge, was set in a small town in Colorado, a way-station on an otherwise endless highway. The central location served as the premise for an anthology series featuring the stories of wandering, disenfranchised characters who passed through the bus stop. The program gained national notoriety when an episode titled "A Lion Walks Among Us" starred pop icon Fabian as a charismatic psychopath who commits several cold-blooded murders. In the climate of criticism that was soon crystallized by the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (Newton Minow's "Vast Wasteland" speech), the episode became a target of television critics and politicians, who seized upon it in order to decry television's degrading influence on American culture.

Stung by the criticism of the series, 20th Century-Fox placed Huggins in a kind of administrative limbo by refusing to allow him to develop other series and essentially waiting for his contract to expire. Huggins used the unexpected free time to write a stinging rebuttal of Minow that appeared in "Television Quarterly". In writing the article Huggins became one of the few members of Hollywood's creative community to defend the artistic merit of commercial, popular culture and to question Minow's essentially elitist criticism of television. He criticized Minow and other cultural elitists for allowing their contempt for kitsch--"their dread of being caught in a profane mood"--to cloud their judgment. Huggins's essay amounted to a sophisticated and subtle defense of popular culture in an era when television producers did not make artistic claims for their work. "The public arts," he wrote, "are created for a mass audience and for a profit; that is their essential nature. But they can at times achieve truth and beauty, and given freedom they will achieve it more and more often." After the debacle at Fox, Huggins returned to graduate school at UCLA, determined to get his Ph.D. and to leave television behind.

He needed a bankroll and came up with the idea of creating a series that he could sell to another producer, then sit back and watch the residuals roll in. This series was The Fugitive, which he sold to independent producer Quinn Martin after overcoming ABC's initial resistance to a series with an escaped convict as its central character. The story of Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen), suspected of murdering his wife and forced to flee the police while in pursuit of the actual killer, carried the mythic resonance of quest narratives from "The Odyssey" to "Les Miserables." Huggins wanted to update the western by placing its wandering hero in a contemporary setting. In transposing the stock figure of the wanderer from the mythic landscape of the West to the landscape of 1960s America, he created a new and unsettling dramatic hero for television, a rootless, paranoid loner, the most unsettled character on the New Frontier of Kennedy-era America. The quest--the ongoing tension between pursuit and capture--was new to prime-time series and gave The Fugitive a powerful narrative momentum which paid off in the record-setting ratings for the final episodes.

The Fugitive did not exhibit Huggins's characteristic sense of humor, but it developed his fascination with heroic outcasts and revealed his skepticism toward what he considered the American "cult of optimism." In 1963 Huggins gave up his plans of graduate school and accepted a job as a vice president in the television division at Universal, where he spent the next 18 years. During this period, Universal became the predominant creator of dramatic series, often accounting for much of the NBC schedule throughout the 1960s. Huggins adapted to the programming formats that evolved over the years at Universal, producing series, made-for-TV movies, and miniseries. He began by producing The Virginian (1962-71) and Kraft Suspense Theater (1963-65). He created and produced Run for Your Life (1965-68), a variation on The Fugitive in which attorney Paul Bryan (Ben Gazzara) sets off on adventurous journey after discovering that he has a mysterious fatal illness and only two years to live.

In 1969 Huggins set up an independent production company, Public Arts, at Universal and began a series of co-productions with the studio. He created The Lawyers segment of the omnibus series The Bold Ones (1969-72) and produced several other series, including Alias Smith and Jones (1971-73), Toma (1973-74), and Baretta (1975-78). The crown jewel of Huggins's period at Universal is certainly The Rockford Files, which he co-created with Stephen J. Cannell. Huggins produced The Rockford Files for only two seasons, but his influence is unmistakable in the self-deprecating, slightly disreputable private eye played by James Garner. In the late 1970s Huggins turned to producing miniseries, including Captains and Kings (1976) and Arthur Hailey's Wheels (1978). His association with Universal ended in 1980, when he left to concentrate on writing. In 1985 he returned to television at the request of his former protege Stephen J.

Cannell to produce Hunter (1984-1991). Recent feature-film versions of The Fugitive (1993) and Maverick (1994) have been fantastic successes at the box office. Their success is a tribute to Huggins's lasting importance as one of television's great storytellers. -Christopher Anderson ROY HUGGINS. Born in Litelle, Washington, U.S.A., 18 July 1914. Educated at the University of California, 1935-41. Married: Adele Mara. Worked as a special representative of the U.S. Civil Service, 1941-43; industrial engineer, 1943-46; screenwriter, 1952-55; producer, Warner Brothers Television, 1955-60; vice-president of 20th Century Fox Television, 1960; producer, MCA Revue, Universal Television, 1963-80; president of production company, Public Arts, Inc. in Universal City, California; writer, director, producer for television, since 1968.

TELEVISION SERIES (producer)

Question: Who played Bret's brother, Bart Maverick in the 1957-62 Warner Bros TV western?
Answer: Jack Kelly